"In September 1862, William Benjamin Gould escaped from slavery by rowing to the U.S.S. Cambridge, a Union gunboat patrolling off the coast of Wilmington, North Carolina. He served in the United States Navy for the remainder of the Civil War and left a diary of his experiences - one of only three known diaries of African American sailors from the period.

It is distinguished not only by its details and eloquent tone, but also by its author's reflections on the conduct of the war, on his own military engagements, on race, on race relations in the Navy, and on what African Americans might expect after the War and during Reconstruction.".

"William B. Gould IV has provided introductory chapters establishing the context of the diary narrative, an annotated version of the diary, a brief account of Gould's life in Massachusetts after the war, and his thoughts about the legacy of his great-grandfather and his own journey of discovery in learning about this remarkable man."--BOOK JACKET.